Strong headwinds have led to sharp increase in the number of transatlantic Continental Airlines flights forced to make unscheduled stops to refuel, the Wall Street Journal reports. The airline, owned by United Continental Holdings, has pushed the envelope by aggressively using the Boeing 757 on transatlantic flights. The plane is smaller and cheaper to operate…
Continental Airlines is introducing a service called Farelock, which will be available when booking reservations on their website. Continental has long offered a 24 hour flexible hold, during which changes and cancellations are permitted without penalty. This is mirrored by many major carriers.
United and Continental are…on paper, no more. They are now wholly owned subsidiaries of United Continental Holdings Incorporated. It will take until 2012 for them to combine into one airline. Until then, they will run as separate companies, despite the fanfare. That means separate websites, check-in operations, etc. The synergy will not even start till spring.
Shareholders of United and Continental are set to vote on September 17th on combining the two companies.
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Welcome back. Our editor has been a bit behind with other things, but we’re trying to get back on track and back in the saddle. Stay tuned for more guests, and more information. For today, more from previous guest Dan Webb.
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Our editor is back from his trip. Check out his review on the Auto Train. Meanwhile, back into the swing of things. Lots of business to take care of.
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This is a Special Briefing…We like to open up the Briefing for those to provide their opinion and to hear some new voices. Both of our guests did talk more than you hear, but were edited for time. Thanks to Dan Webb, of Boarding Area’s Things in the Sky blog. Dan is also a regular on the Airplane Geeks podcast and will be back with another piece soon. Our second guest, with a brief opinion, is Marisa Green. Remember, you too can give your two cents on the Briefing. Just contact us.
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Our editor will be going on the road for a few days, as a roving reporter for our sister project, Transit Wisdom, reviewing Amtrak’s Autotrain. Until then, here’s all the news that fit to podcast.
The New York Times reports that Continental and United Airlines agreed today to a merger that would create the world’s biggest airline. United is buying Continental, and the new company will be based in Chicago, and will have Jeffrey Smisek, Continental CEO, as the Chief Executive.
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[caption id="attachment_1706" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Lavatory - Virgin America A320"][/caption] This is the Flight Wisdom Guru with Briefing #14, once again reporting in from Flight Wisdom HQ…We ran a little long today, and will try to have a second briefing out tomorrow afternoon, to catch up before the weekend rush. Show Notes Virgin Atlantic to Launch…
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We’re reporting in this week from the birthplace of Flight Wisdom, affectionately known as the Flight Wisdom Summer Palace. Flight Wisdom began in the summer of 2006, when a bunch of us decided to get into the habit of subject-based blogging. I, your usual host, the Editor, also known as the Flight Wisdom Guru, hope to give you the chance to hear some of the other voices of Flight Wisdom this week.
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After this Briefing, our editor will be heading on the road for a few days. Lots of interesting things going on, but we’re bringing along our portable recording equipment to report on it.
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Lots of exciting new service in this briefing. We have tried a few different variations of our opening and closing. We’ll continue to mix it up a bit, but if you have any suggestions on how to improve the Briefing, please contact us.
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This is Briefing 6. Welcome to our new subscribers on iTunes. Since last time, we did a bit of a movie opener in honor of Peter Graves and Airplane, we decided to try another random one that had been lurking in our heads. Feel free to tweet or comment with the movie title if you recognized it. We’ll continue to adjust the opening and closing until we find one or several with enduring amusement. If this is how it sounds at Brief 6, imagine how good we’ll be at it by Brief 60. Keep listening.
The Examiner reports that Continental Airlines will end its free meal program on flights shorter than six hours. We always find it amusing that companies, airline or not, spin taking away services that were previously free and replacing them with a paid option as an improvement for their customers. Certainly, we demand that if we pay for it, it be a better quality experience, but beyond that…
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Image by Dave Sizer via Flickr As we continue to perfect the Brief, we offer a new opener, as well as a tribute to this Day in Aviation History. Tune in. Notes: American Eagle’s New Service to Augusta WestJet Launches New Frequent Flier Program 787 Begins First Flight Tests outside of Washington United orders 25…
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For those of you who enjoyed the first brief, here’s the second one. If you want to subscribe to the brief in your podcatcher, our podcast only RSS feed is here.
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We’ve decided to try a little experiment here at Flight Wisdom. We’re going to record our news and service roundups that you can subscribe and listen to in your favorite podcast software. The new service, which we are calling the Flight Wisdom Briefing, will, if popular, come out at least once a week, if not more, depending on the volume of news to report, and will be supported by links in the post for each episode.
A year ago today, on Thursday, February 12, 2009, Continental Connection flight 3407 crashed into a house in Clarence Center, NY. The flight, a Q400 turboprop operated by Colgan Air, killed 45 passengers, 4 crewmembers, and 1 man on the ground. The plane was on approach into Buffalo-Niagara international Airport from Newark’s Liberty Airport.
Enjoy the latest in airline service changes.
We haven’t been writing enough lately. That does happen sometimes when real life interferes with this(which is unfortunately a hobby). Here’s what we’ve been reading about. If Pat Kiernan of New York City based station NY1 can make a name for himself reading the newspaper and running Pat’s Papers online, we can try to see if people like such a feature.
There has always been a somewhat unrealistic concept that rail transportation, most notably Amtrak, should be self-sufficient. Airport construction projects are heavily subsidized by the federal government. Highways are subsidized. None of these are expected to be self sufficient.
Image via Wikipedia Welcome to another additional of roundup. Today we have some continuing news and route developments. Remember, for more details/information, a link appears to a press release or other story inside each notice. This week, AirTran announced increases to its winter Florida schedule. Daily flights will be added to both Orlando and Ft.…
Image by mtsofan via Flickr So, now Continental has gotten AirTran out of Newark in exchange for slots at LaGuardia and National, where they are hardly a powerhouse. Delta is taking over US Airways extensive regional slots at LaGuardia, and US Airways is getting international route permissions and greater dominance at Washington National. It allows…
Image via Wikipedia AirTran Airways made a deal with Continental Airlines yesterday to stop flying to and from Newark Liberty Airport in exchange for slots at Washington National and New York’s LaGuardia Airports. AirTran will cease operations at Newark on October 25th. AirTran will give its 10 slots, its single gate, and a jetway at…